‘Being Human’: Panic Womb

[This is a review of Being Human season 4, episode 4. There will be SPOILERS.]

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On the surface, last night’s episode of Being Human could be described as a bit talky and maybe even dull. There was the return of yet another old friend in the form of Zoe (the ghost seeing nurse), but no witchcraft, Donna, or time jumps. Josh didn’t completely wolf-out and Aidan mostly worried about his feelings. Down deep, though, “Panic Womb” felt like a game-changer that pushed the main characters to really face who and what they are.

For Aidan, it seemed as if a romantic re-connection with his long-lost wife Suzanna was in the cards at the beginning of this season due to their shared history and Aidan’s centuries long ache over having lost her to a group of fretting villagers who thought her a witch after he returned from the war with light in his eyes after having been seen dead. After it was revealed last week that Suzanna had single-handedly attacked Kenny’s blood den, though, it seemed as if that connection was unlikely at best, but now it seems to be completely off the table, and that is a credit to the writers who are clearly trying to make the Aidan and Kat relationship work while passing over some pretty fertile creative real estate.

As is the case with all relationships that Aidan has, though, the lie that is his “human” life stands in the way of true honesty, especially since he already had to have Kat compelled early on – something that still haunts him, especially as he prepares to tell Kat the truth about what he is, partially in response to Suzanna’s proclamation that he is doomed to never truly live as a human.

From the start of the series, Aidan has been defined as a vampire desperately trying to exercise self-control. There have been notable slip-ups, but for the most part, he has tried to re-enter the human race and he has lived a good (yet complicated) life. Is it good enough to earn the 10 years of a normal life that he tells Suzanna that he wants? We’ll have to wait and see.

Josh is also behaving himself, trying to fight off the wolf with physical fitness (there’s a PSA in there somewhere). While on a ten mile run, though, he sniffs out a pregnant werewolf (Caroline) and the two quickly strike up a trust that is sturdy enough for the woman to meet up with Josh and Nora at the hospital with her husband Andrew to have an ultrasound. It’s not completely bizarre to see Josh go out of his way to help another, but after the flurry of changes that he has gone through, it’s also fair to wonder if the paternal side of the pure-bread wolf is coming out.

Regardless, the couple exit the hospital after some scary findings only to return to the house later after Caroline’s water has broken. After a bit, the baby is born successfully, leaving Josh and Nora longing to have their own were-baby.

As for Sally, she catches up with Zoe while in pursuit of help with the Lil Smokie girl from last week’s episode, aka Beatrice. It seems that the girl isn’t a ghost and that she grew up to have a daughter of her own, but something is clearly not right by episode’s end, leading us to believe that we’ll see more of the girl and Sally’s pursuit.

The most impactful part of Sally’s episode arc comes thanks to Zoe. Allies more than friends in the past, Zoe is blunt with Sally about her inability to accept her station and her penchant for making excuses about the things that she does to make herself more comfortable with them.

Hearing Zoe use “Sally” as a verb to describe bungling something and telling her that she wrecks everything fits nicely with all that Donna said in the season premiere about the hazards that Sally brings. Girl could get a complex, but will it deter her from chasing down this lead?

Again, this episode lacked some of the punch and the excitement of this season’s earlier efforts, and there was certainly nothing close to the twist ending that we saw last week with Suzanna and the blood den. What this was, was an effort to lay tracks while showing us which direction the character’s compasses are pointing toward.

Is it a little too tidy to have all of these revelations and course corrections pop up in one episode? Yes, but these character’s lives always criss-cross anyway, so it’s far from a new trick, and fans are likely to overlook that narrative convenience, especially if Aidan, Josh, Nora, and Sally pivot off of this episode into some major new directions.